Regaining my political neutrality!

After a week of Obama blasting, I feel compelled to direct some ire at the Republican ticket to regain my normal knife edge of neutrality that I feel will take me to a "game-time decision" at the polls.

A monstrous concern I have against the McCain-Palin ticket is that both people have shown a reckless disregard for science. They seem to treat it as the sworn enemy of religion, and that the only way to secure Conservative Republican votes is to make claims like "we should end fruit fly research, it's wasteful and un-American."

Then there is the idea that Creationism (for right or wrong) cannot possibly meld with Science. I do not understand how Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time, spent years researching a Unified Field Theory to mate electromagnetic forces with gravity, a seemingly oddball force, and nowadays billions are spent in the study of physics to do just that...but somehow it's an affront to religious fundamentalists whenever a scientist gets $1 million to do some evolutionary biology research. Where are the Gravitational Fundamentalists crying out against the Electromagnetic Force Scientists who are trying to destroy the glorious, blind beauty of gravity as a unique force sent directly by God that needs no explanation?!
Better yet, how can any sane person take Religion and science...and then conveniently ignore the science but also use it to write their own textbooks on "science" that are more in-line with archaic stories that are clearly meant to be parables. That is the equivalent of me taking the Bible, and the Qu'ran, and then writing my own version of the Qu'ran with Jesus all throughout it as a Messiah instead of prophet, then calling followers of the real Qu'ran bad Christians and damning them to hell.

Most of the above is the (loudly) proclaimed policy of Governer Palin. McCain's awe-inspiring lack of faith in science and technology isn't much more promising.

Senator McCain has voted against renewable energy research and tax credits multiple times.

His real laugher, however, is when he talks about stem cell research.

While I support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, I believe clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress. Moreover, I believe that recent scientific breakthroughs raise the hope that one day this debate will be rendered academic. I also support funding for other research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research which hold much scientific promise and do not involve the use of embryos. I oppose the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes and I voted to ban the practice of “fetal farming,” making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes.

I can't begin to tell you how hypocritical it is for fundamentalists to say that stem cell research destroys a life and then be in favor of in vitro fertilization. For those of you not familiar with the show "John and Kate Plus Eight," the typical process of in vitro fertilization is the harvest a dozen eggs, fertilizing them with sperm in a little dish, then injecting all the fertilized eggs into the mother's uterus. Typically three or four eggs will attach to the mother's uterine wall; the rest die and are passed out through normal vaginal discharge. Similarly, if too many eggs implant the doctor will often abort some of them to reduce the total number of fetuses in the uterus to three or less, depending on the parents' desire.
Under John McCain's policy, this should be considered homocide...multiple homocide, and the doctor is a serial killer, the scientist mixing eggs in a pitri dish is a serial killer with a God Complex, and the parents should not have children. But somehow religious fundamentalism ignores this embryonic murder because it uses science, and doesn't get used by science.

McCain also believes the government interest in funding research should decrease, and corporate involvement should increase. This is the opposite of a good idea. Government-funded research has the ability to remain neutral; to be research for the sake of science with no clear goal but a better understanding of the universe small or large. Corporate funded research always has a clear goal and motive that involves profit, and all too often research becomes unethical when the bottom line isn't greater understanding, it's greater wealth for stockholders.

Science has already been fighting an uphill battle for the last 8 years as one of the few "conservative" things Bush did was to slash grant funding for research nationwide. McCain and The Cougar will undoubtedly continue that trend, claiming science is "discretionary spending." For Republican Presidents, science has become something you absolutely don't endorse unless it is good for P.R., for example everyone suddenly jumping on the renewable energy bandwagon. Solar, wind, and geothermal power have been around for 50 years...they just weren't good ways to get votes until recently. That's not being pro-science, that's being pro-self.